Four things to keep in mind ahead of the European elections in May

At the end of May, people across the EU’s 27 member states will go to the polls. They will cast their vote on who they want to lead Europe and what issues are top of their priorities, from tackling climate change to ensuring Europe’s borders are secure.

These
elections couldn’t come at a more turbulent time. One of the EU’s biggest and
most powerful member states, the UK, is on the brink of exiting; there are
major issues of rule of law; and civic space in parts of the EU is closing
down. Globally, we are facing an unprecedented climate crisis.

We
want to send a clear message to those parties, candidates and countries
preparing for the European Elections: tackling corruption and damage done to
people and planet must be front of mind.

Threats from inside and outside the EU, not only
threatens civic space and freedom of speech, but also the systems we have
worked hard together to create. Systems that fight corruption, human rights
abuse and environmental destruction.

Global Witness believes that it must be a core
priority for both the new European Commission and Parliament to preserve and
improve the regulations built over decades to protect people, their freedoms
and the planet.

We want a better world – where corruption is
challenged and accountability prevails, all can thrive within the planet’s
boundaries, and governments act in the public interest.

We ask that whatever the new representation of Europe
looks like, those in power keep front of mind four key critical areas:

With
political momentum building to make banks and investors more accountable for today’s
vast sustainability challenges – be it climate change or threats to local
communities – the new European Commission and Parliament have the historic
opportunity to build on the ongoing work as part of the EU’s Action Plan on
financing sustainable growth - to act to close these loopholes.

We’re
committed to developing rules for EU investors to tackle the challenges of
climate change, and bring about a more sustainable financial system. As well as
helping implement the Paris Agreement, we want to ensure that rules for EU
investors promote a more social and egalitarian Europe through mandatory investor due
diligence and minimum social safeguards to
ensure financial markets work for people and planet not just profit.

EU companies must also do their part. Companies importing timber or
minerals into the EU are required to carry out due diligence along their
supply chains. We believe that all companies should do the same. This
would ensure that companies are properly identifying, preventing and
mitigating environmental, social and governance risks along their global
supply chains. In a world where some multinational corporations are
bigger than nations, it is time to ensure real checks and balances to
protect people and planet.

2. Creating
real action on deforestation

From
coffee drunk in French cafes to chocolate eaten in Belgium, Europe’s imports
have a huge impact on our global environment.

Photo credit: Fábio Erdos/Panos

Foods
such as these, eaten across the continent every day, can have devastating
impacts on tropical forests millions of miles away, as centuries old forests
are cleared to grow ingredients for foods that form a central part of our diet.

Between 1990 and 2008 alone,
EU imports accounted for over one third of all globally traded commodities
associated with deforestation. And
each year, European consumption is responsible for deforested land nearly the
size of Cyprus, or a quarter of the size of Belgium.

As it
develops plans to step up action to tackle deforestation and forest
degradation, the European Commission must propose binding legislation to
guarantee that products placed on the EU market and activities in the financial
sector do not cause deforestation, forest degradation or violations of human
rights.

3. Bringing
an end to Money Laundering

Money laundering continues to
present a huge challenge for the EU, as a string of major corruption scandals
at EU banks - including one worth over €200 billion at Danske Bank in Estonia -
have shown.

Despite successive changes to EU
anti-money laundering rules in recent years, implementation and enforcement has
been slow and patchy in EU countries. It is also becoming increasingly apparent
that Europe’s defences against money laundering are only as strong as its
weakest link, with national authorities often failing to detect
and sufficiently punish money laundering when it occurs. As a result, huge
volumes of dirty money – including from organised crime and corruption – are
laundered through EU banks.

The EU led the world when it
required the real owners of EU companies to be revealed, and has
recently taken unprecedented steps to pressure other countries to do the same via its money laundering blacklist. It also took important action to open up EU
trusts albeit stopping short of making their owners fully public.

Working together, the new
European Commission, Parliament and Member States must ensure that the ongoing
reforms to the EU’s money laundering framework are ambitious and fit for
purpose, including an accountability structure for banks with teeth. The
Commission and Parliament must also put renewed pressure on the European
governments who drag their feet in implementing existing anti-money
laundering rules, including for company transparency.

Read more about the
failings here and
our EU anti-money laundering work here.

4. Closing the door to the corrupt

Golden visa schemes, which offer passports or visas
to the super-rich in return for large investments, pose a threat to the
collective security and integrity of the European Union.

Countries that sell visas and passports are making
the EU a soft target for the wealthy corrupt. Weak vetting of applicants
creates an open-door policy to criminals who are looking for a luxury lifestyle
and a means to evade law enforcement and prosecution in their home country,
while lax oversight of the schemes keeps the public in the dark and can expose
officials to the risk of being bribed.

This is not just what we believe, but what the
European Commission concluded in January 2019 following a year-long study into
the schemes available in Member States.

Currently, three EU Member States sell passports,
and over 10 trade in visas. Given the
inherent corruption risks, these schemes ought to operate under the highest
standards of due diligence and discretion so that countries know who they are
welcoming in and where their money comes from.

Unfortunately, our joint
investigation with Transparency International found that not to be the case. Instead,
we discovered that a number of suspicious businessmen and oligarchs have bought
golden visas and are enjoying all the benefits and rights that come with
freedom of movement and European status.

Now that the Commission has finally recognised the
serious risks associated with golden visas, we are calling for Member States
and the Commission to take urgent action to radically reform schemes which threaten
European citizens by selling ‘get out of jail free’ cards to the world’s
corrupt elite.

The new European Parliament and Commission must be
courageous – ensuring strong measures to curtail corruption and abuse are
maintained and strengthened. It must acknowledge the links between finance and
environmental destruction and start to reform them. And it must act quickly, as
time grows shorter for a planet and continent under new and escalating pressures.